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British Fans Aren’t Fair Weather

Today's game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants is the first ever N.F.L. game played overseas. Credit
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

LONDON, Oct. 28 — An 18-year-old from Swansea in South Wales looked as if he had arrived for an N.F.L. casting call to promote the league’s international push. Rhys Clements had traveled a decent distance to come to the game. His age fit every sponsor’s target demographic, and he wore a purple Minnesota Vikings jersey.

But it was the look on his face that should make N.F.L. officials smile. His entire face was thick with paint. Half was teal, for the Dolphins; half was blue, for the Giants.

“I love the game,” Clements said. “It’s brilliant.”

He held a large plastic bag. Inside was his version of the venerable “de-fense” sign — a cut-out “D” and a cardboard picket fence, just as Clements had seen on television.

For several glorious and damp hours at Wembley Stadium, the N.F.L. could be forgiven for thinking it had already accomplished what this game set out to do — capture a broad and non-American audience. Hours before the kickoff, which was 5 p.m. London time, football fans and some of their curious friends poured out of the nearby Underground and train stations and converged on the stadium.

The N.F.L. said 87 percent of the tickets were sold to people in Britain, and at least as many wore the jerseys of their favorite players and teams, the way fans in the United States do. Most of the jerseys represented an N.F.L. team other than the Giants or the Dolphins, the opponents for Sunday’s game, giving the afternoon the feel of an international convention, not an intense contest between two particular teams.

Many fans did wear the jerseys of the Giants or the Dolphins. American football first came to Britain in 1982, when Channel 4 began broadcasting a program of condensed highlights of N.F.L. games. Allegiances became instant and permanent; the best teams of the mid-1980s — including the Dolphins, the Giants, the 49ers and the Bears — remain among the favorite teams today.

That explained an odd confluence at what the N.F.L. deemed a “tailgate” party, although there were no cars, and the festival generally took place indoors because of a spritzing rain. Someone wearing a No. 13 Dolphins jersey walked up to another person with the same jersey and said, “Hey, Dan Marino!” They greeted each other, with British accents, while a third Dan Marino watched and laughed.

The N.F.L. had more than 500,000 people register online to buy tickets, far more than the stadium’s capacity of roughly 88,000. Thousands of those who bought tickets registered and were granted entry into the tailgate party outside the stadium.

One thing the N.F.L. could not control was the weather. A plaza with a large stage sat mostly empty as a storm front crossed southern England after a long string of cool-but-dry days. Instead, fans crowded into an adjacent arena, greeted by young men standing on stilts and playfully tossing footballs at them. One wore the jersey of the Giants’ Jeremy Shockey, the other wore a Miami No. 84, a number not assigned to any current player.

On the indoor concourse, Alistair Kirkwood, the managing director of the N.F.L. U.K., stood in a rain poncho.

“It’s what people think of when they think of London, isn’t it?” he said, mustering a cheery spin on the day’s weather.

It did not seem to dampen the spirit of fans. On the floor of the arena, another band played as vendors sold the American stadium standards beer and popcorn.

On the other end of the arena were large backdrops, one of the sunset over the Art Deco hotels of Miami Beach, the other of the Manhattan skyline. A scaled-down replica of the Statue of Liberty was planted nearby.

Fans lined up to try to throw footballs at targets; many had never held a football before. Others tried simulated field goals, with few able to launch it more than a couple of feet into the air. Some performed a drill in which receivers leapt onto a large inflated pad while trying to catch a football.

Outside, the rain let up. It was coming down just enough to be noticed, but not enough to scare people to cover. So the band began to play, and people gathered. A 26-foot version of Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor, powered by a machine behind him, was brought to life. He stood, raised his arms, turned his head, blinked, winked and even walked.

An announcer explained what a defensive end is, and cited Taylor’s résumé: among other things, he is a Libra, he told fans. A man in Giants garb walked away and said that Michael Strahan was much better.

A puppeteer and choreographer named Mak Wilson worked the controls. Big J. T., as he had been dubbed, made appearances throughout the week leading to the game. At Canary Wharf on Tuesday, fans were handed foam No. 1 fingers. “People are absolutely mad for them,” Wilson said.

At Victoria Station on Thursday, Big J. T. was surrounded by workers who handed commuters plastic holders for their Oyster cards, the prepaid cards for the Underground, that promoted the N.F.L.

People stopped and took pictures, laughed and shrieked when the robot seemed to look at them and wink.

Some of them, surely, carried Oyster cards wrapped in the N.F.L.’s logo to Sunday’s game. The turnstiles at the Wembley Park station had Giants and Dolphins decals, and the brick path to the stadium was lined with banners and merchandise booths.

Fans were allowed inside the stadium two hours before kickoff. Wembley has huge awnings that cover most of the seats but leaves the playing field open to the elements.